COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Tours

Tours of Cooling
Springs Farm and its Underground Railroad safe-house are arranged by
appointment or through the organizations listed under the programssection of this website. To
arrange a tour directly, contactCooling
Springs Farm.

Driving Directions

If you are arriving by airplane or train, see directions
following the driving directions

From Washington, DC, and East

Take Interstate 270 north to Frederick, then very briefly
onto Interstate 70 west, then US15 south. You will now be on US15 and US340
combined. Where they diverge, take US15 to your left. After about two miles,
turn left onto Mountville Road, then right on Ballenger Creek Pike to Cooling
Springs Farm at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

From Baltimore and East

Take Interstate 70 west to Frederick, then US15 south. You
will now be on US15 and US340 combined. Where they diverge, take US15 to your
left. After about two miles, turn left onto Mountville Road, then right on
Ballenger Creek Pike to Cooling Springs Farm at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

From Pennsylvania and North

Take US15 south through Frederick, Maryland. After passing
through Frederick, you will be on US15 and US340 combined. Where they
diverge, take US15 to your left. After about two miles, turn left onto
Mountville Road, then right on Ballenger Creek Pike to Cooling Springs Farm
at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

From Virginia and South

Find your way to US Route 15 north which lies to the west
of Interstate 95 and to the east of Interstate 81. Take US15 north across the
Potomac River. Immediately after crossing the river, turn right onto Maryland
Route 28, and then take an immediate left onto Ballenger Creek Pike to
Cooling Springs Farm at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

From West Virginia and West

Take US340 north across the Potomac River. Where US340
meets US15, follow the signs to US15 south which involves a U-turn at
Mount Zion Road. You are now going south of US340 and US15 combined. Where
they diverge, take US15 to your left. After about two miles, turn left onto
Mountville Road, then right on Ballenger Creek Pike to Cooling Springs Farm
at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

Or, take Interstate 70 from the west to US15
south at Frederick. At first, you will be on US15 and US340 combined. Where
they diverge, take US15 to your left. After about two miles, turn left onto
Mountville Road, then right on Ballenger Creek Pike to Cooling Springs Farm
at 2455 Ballenger Creek Pike.

Arriving by Air

The easiest of the three major local airports for
travelers arriving by air is Thurgood Marshall International Airport (BWI) in
Baltimore. Other choices are National Airport (DCA) in Washington DC or
(better) Dulles International Airport (IAD) near Washington, DC. For driving
directions from Marshall Airport, see under Baltimore above. From Dulles
Airport, take Virginia Route 267 west to US15 north and follow the directions
above for “From Virginia and the South.” Dulles Airport is about 15 minutes
closer to Cooling Springs Farm but flights into Baltimore are usually less
expensive than to Dulles. Departures are also much easier at Marshall than
from Dulles.

Arriving by Train

There is wek-day commuter train service several times
daily from Union Station in Washington, DC to Point of Rocks which is three
miles from Cooling Springs Farm. If you do not have transportation after
reaching Point of Rocks, you may call for a taxi at Bowie Transportation at
301.695.0333.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

The History of Cooling Springs Farm and the
Michael Family in the Underground Railroad

Cooling Springs Farm, located three miles north of the
Potomac River in Frederick County, Maryland, is one of only a small handful
of Underground Railroad safe-houses still known today in border or southern
states of the United States. The family’s passed-down oral tradition is that
freedom seekers escaping slavery were sheltered by the Michael family in the
farm's spring house.

Nationwide, only about one in thirty claimed
Underground Railroad sites has firm documentary proof of Underground Railroad
involvement, with the vast majority of site claims resting on the oral
tradition of their passed-down stories or on circumstantial evidence. Cooling
Springs Farm’s claim rests on the oral tradition passed down in the Michael
family through seven generations now. Some feel that places based only on
oral tradition should not be regarded as Underground Railroad sites but
families and property owners who have received these passed-down stories
cherish them and there is not often any reason not to accept these oral traditions
as accurate.

Cooling Springs Farm was founded by Andrew Michael, a
Swiss immigrant, and his wife Barbara on July 12, 1768. Andrew was the son of
the Swiss explorer Franz Ludwig Michel (sic)
who in 1707 was one of the first European explorers of Frederick County,
Maryland where Cooling Springs Farm is located, and who founded New Bern,
North Carolina in 1709. Andrew was one of four brothers who immigrated to
Frederick County in the mid-1700s. Today, Cooling Springs Farm is owned by
Peter and Vicki Michael who are the seventh generation of the Michael family
at Cooling Springs, a record of longevity of ownership by one family not
matched by many other properties in the United States. After purchasing
Cooling Springs in 2001, Peter and Vicki Michael began restoration of the
farm, home and spring house, and have made Cooling Springs Farm available to
the general public and to the various institutions and programs listed on this web site. Since
occupying Cooling Springs Farm in 2004, the couple has welcomed about 300
visitors per year at the farm.

According to the story passed down in the family, the
roots of involvement by Cooling Springs Farm in the Underground Railroad
began in the mid-1800s with Andrew and Barbara Michael's grandchildren Ezra
and Henry Michael, brothers who owned contiguous farms between Point of Rocks
and Doubs, Maryland. Peter Michael is the great-great-grandson of Ezra
Michael. The passed-down oral tradition is that the two brothers and their
Michael in-laws, the Thomas and Virts families who owned farms abutting the
Michael farms, along with several local churches and the adjoining
black-founded villages of Doubs, Pleasant View, Hall Town and Adamstown,
aided freedom seekers. The three-mile swath controlled by these families,
churches and villages beginning at the Potomac River, the border between
Union states and the Confederacy, and extending northward to Doubs, Maryland,
comprises the Potomac-to-Doubs Route of the Underground Railroad, one of the few
remaining intact Underground Railroad routes. The entire three-mile route was
designated by Scenic America in 2006 as a national scenic place deserving
protection.

During the time it was operated as a safe-house on the
Underground Railroad, Cooling Springs Farm was owned by Ezra and Margaret
Michael who in 1842, the year after they were married, helped to found the
nearby St. Paul's Episcopal Church, established then and continuing to
operate today as an integrated parish. Margaret Michael came from the
abolitionist Dudderar family of Urbana, Frederick County, Maryland, and it
appears to have been she who was the instigator of Michael family involvement
in the Underground Railroad. Ezra Michael was a judge who, the family likes
to say, upheld the law of man by day and followed a higher law by night in
aiding freedom seekers.

Cooling Springs Farm lies within the Carrollton Manor Land
Trust, the Catoctin Mountain Scenic Byway, the Journey Through Hallowed
Ground and the Civil War Heritage Area. The farm is listed on the Maryland
Inventory of Historic Places and is a Frederick
County Landmark. In 2007, the family donated a permanent conservation
easement to the Maryland Environmental Trust putting the farm into perpetual
protection against future development.

Margaret and Ezra established a Michael tradition of
promotion of good race relations which took the form in later generations of
direct personal involvement in integrating the Methodist Church by Walter M.
Michael I and his son Marion S. Michael II, and the United States Air Force
by Pierce B. Michael, Sr., the son of Walter and father of present Cooling
Springs owner Peter H. Michael.

Margaret and Ezra were not the last Michaels to usher a
slave to freedom: this distinction came in 1941 to their great-grandson,
Harvey N. Michael III, who as a young United States Army soldier stationed in
The Philippines, bought the freedom of an enslaved 16-year-old Chinese. In
1942, Harvey was captured by the Japanese who enslaved him in a coal mine
near Nagasaki, Japan, for the remainder of the war. Thus the freer of a slave
had become a slave.There is
much more to the family’s integration struggles and the amazing story of
Harvey Michael which is provided fully in abook authored by Peter Michael, An American Family of the Underground
Railroad.

Today, the most distinguished family practitioner of the
Michael legacy of fostering good race relations is Walter M. Michael II,
member of the faculty of music and Artist in Residence at McDaniel College in
nearby Westminster, Maryland, who in 1994 founded Common Ground, a McDaniel
program which advances racial harmony through traditional music. Visit the
website here.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

One stretch of the Potomac-to-Doubs Route of the
Underground Railroad running three miles from the Potomac River to Doubs,
Maryland. This photograph is of Thomas's Lane just north of the Potomac
River. This is what freedom seekers saw in their first few minutes in Union territory.
Thomas's Lane has existed since the early 1800s when the farm through which
it runs was purchased by the Thomas family, in-laws and neighbors of the
Michaels.

Further north on the Potomac-to-Doubs Underground
Railroad Route, here overlooking Cooling Springs Farm and the Michael
homestead in the background. The three–mile route of the
Potomac-to-Doubs Route of the Underground Railroad consists of a network of
old farm roads and lies intact in the same place as in Underground Railroad days.
It is a rarity today that this length of an old Underground Railroad route
remains whole and undisturbed by development,

What freedom seekers saw: the Spring House, hidden beyond
the bridge past the creeks of Cooling Springs Farm. Frank and Emily Wanzer,
Barnaby and Mary Elizabeth Grigsby, and two unknown others are thought to
have passed through Cooling Springs Farm on Christmas Eve, 1855, and might
have been sheltered in the Spring House after the six had escaped that
morning from Aldie, Virginia, 30 miles south of Cooling Springs where they
had been enslaved. The next day, Christmas, while the party of six was
traveling north from Cooling Springs to Pennsylvania, one of the unknown
freedom seekers was shot and killed by slave catchers, the other captured and
re-enslaved. The Wanzers and Grigsbys escaped at gunpoint, went on north, and
lived the rest of their lives in Canada. Cooling Springs Farm has located the
descendants of Frank Wanzer and they and the Michael family have shared their
common history.

On the left is Allen Nelson, great-great-grandson of
freedom seeker Frank Wanzer who is thought to have passed through Cooling
Springs Farm in 1855, and on the right, Peter Michael, great-great-grandson
of Ezra and Margaret Michael who operated Cooling Springs Farm as an
Underground Railroad safe-house at the time. Between them is Januwa Moja,
wife of Mr. Nelson, and behind the three is the Spring House where Frank
Wanzer and his five fellow freedom seekers were possibly sheltered. The
spring house is shown here before restoration.

The first public tour of Cooling Springs Farm and
spring house conducted in August, 2002. Shown here are several members of the
Michael family and of the Ambush and Harris families, long-time neighbors of
the old African-American village of Pleasant View adjoining the Michael
farms. The three families have known each other for at least six generations.
The spring house is shown in the background before restoration.

Rhonda and Sparky Rucker, left above, lead celebrants
in Underground Railroad songs at the rededication of Cooling Springs Farm on
July 2, 2003. The Ruckers are the national leaders in rediscovering and
keeping the songs of the Underground Railroad before the audiences of today.
On the right is Walt Michael, artistic director of Common Ground

On the right in this circa 1900 photograph is the home
of Ezra and Margaret Michael which existed in Underground Railroad times.
This original Cooling Springs home, begun in 1768 by the first generation of
the family, lasted until about the 1920s. The "new" Cooling Springs
home, still so called, built by Ezra and Margaret in 1879, is in the top
center of the photograph, and is the farm residence today.

The present Cooling Springs home built by Ezra and
Margaret Michael in 1879. This home is typical of the local vernacular
farmhouse architecture of the mid- to late nineteenth century, and retains
its original layout, floors, walls, ceilings, three chimneys, stone masonry
and most fixtures. Cooling Springs Farm is a Frederick County Landmark, is
listed by the Maryland Historical Trust in the Maryland Inventory of Historic
Properties, and has been featured on the Historic Home Tour of Frederick
County.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church near Cooling Springs Farm.
The church was supported in its founding as an integrated parish by Ezra and
Margaret Michael, their Thomas and Virts in-laws, and others in 1842, the
year after Margaret and Ezra were married. The church and its graveyard were
integrated from the beginning and still are. St. Paul's was active in the
abolitionist movement and possibly in the Underground Railroad, and was used
as a hospital by the Union Army during the Civil War.

Ezra (1813-1886) and Margaret (1823-1897) Michael. She was
born on his tenth birthday.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Peter Michael Available to Speak on the Underground Railroad

Cooling Springs owner Peter H. Michael is available to
conventions, meetings and civic groups, and to television and radio to speak
on the Underground Railroad. He has given many interviews and presentations
in each of these media. There is no charge.

Mr. Michael is the author of An American Family of the Underground Railroad on Michael family
Underground Railroad involvement, and Guide
to Freedom: Rediscovering the Underground Railroad In One United States
County. You may visit the first book's web site or order the bookhere and the
second book's web site or order ithere.

Guide to Freedom:
Rediscovering the Underground Railroad
In One United States County reveals the Underground Railroad in Frederick County, Maryland, where he
lives, and nearby. The book is available at Amazon and may be ordered
wherever books are sold.

Peter Michael is also the author of Palace of Yawns, an exposé of the failure of the United Nations
to adequately assist poor countries in lowering their birth rates. To
purchase the book, clickhere.

Peter Michael is the founder and publisher of Underground Railroad Free Press, North
America’s leading Underground Railroad news publication and the international
central registry of Underground Railroad organizations and events. Underground Railroad Free Press awards
the annual Free Press Prizes in contemporary Underground Railroad leadership,
preservation and advancement of knowledge, the international Underground
Railroad community's top honors. To subscribe to this free publication, order
back issues, or submit articles, letters or advertising, visit the Underground Railroad Free Press web
sitehere.

In his professional life, Peter Michael is founder and
president of Michael Strategic Analysis, an award-winning firm located in
Adamstown, Maryland, practicing strategic planning, market analysis and
expert witness economic damages testimony. Visit the MSA web site here. Mr. Michael took his undergraduate
degree at the University of Maryland, holds an MBA in international business
from the University of California at Berkeley where his master's thesis
became the cover story of a national magazine, and completed a post-graduate
fellowship in demography at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs. He has taught management or demography at
the graduate level at universities in Thailand, Japan, Costa Rica and the
United States.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Programs

Cooling Springs Farm and its Underground Railroad
safe-house are available by appointment to the general public and press for
tours and study. Cooling Springs Farm has been made available for study and
tours to the following affiliated institutions and programs.

Cooling
Springs Farm and the Press

Cooling Springs Farm has been featured in the following
national and local publications.

Underground
Railroad Free Press, National News on the Underground Railroad

Peter H. Michael is
publisher of Underground Railroad Free
Press, the leading source of objective news on today’s Underground
Railroad. You may subscribe free to Underground
Railroad Free Press at its web site. Visit the web site here.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

This museum is the largest organization involved in the
Underground Railroad today. Funded with private and public donations of more
than $110 million, the Freedom Center is housed in its magnificent
headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Freedom Center offers a breadth of
programs which teach about the Underground Railroad, and promotes the memory
and sites of the underground railroad. Visit the web sitehere.

The National Park Service Network To Freedom Program

Cooling Springs Farm and the spring house have been made
available for participation through the National Park Service's National
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, one of the federal government's three
official means of commemorating the Underground Railroad, and for study and
tours sponsored by the Network to Freedom. The Network to Freedom lists
Cooling Springs Farm as a Network to Freedom Partner. Visit the Network to Freedom web sitehere.

The Menare Foundation

This foundation is headquartered in Montgomery County,
Maryland, just to the east of Frederick County where Cooling Springs Farm is
located. The Menare Foundation's mission is to identify and preserve existing
Underground Railroad sites, especially safe-houses. Cooling Springs and its
spring house have been made available to the Menare Foundation for study and
tours. Visit the Menare web sitehere.

The Maryland Historical Trust

The home at Cooling Springs Farm is listed by the Maryland
Historical Trust on its Maryland Inventory of Historic Places. For the
researcher, the listing is F-1-138. Cooling Springs Farm and the spring house
have been made available to the Maryland Historical Trust for study and
tours. Visit the web sitehere.

The Maryland Tourism Council and the Tourism Council Of
Frederick County

Cooling Springs Farm has been made available to both of
these tourism agencies for tours. Visit the Maryland Tourism Council here, and
the Tourism Council of Frederick Countyhere.

The Historical Society of
Frederick County

Cooling Springs Farm has been featured on the annual
Historic Homes Tour of the Historical Society of Frederick County. Cooling
Springs Farm and the spring house have been made available for study and
tours of theSociety. Visit the
web sitehere.

McDaniel College and Its
Common Ground Program

Cooling Springs Farm co-owner Peter Michael has taught the
McDaniel College class on the Underground Railroad in the McDaniel College
Common Ground Program. The program has included tours of Cooling Springs Farm
and other Frederick County Underground Railroad sites. Common Ground, founded
by Walter M. Michael II In 1994, promotes racial harmony through traditional
music. Visit the Common Ground web sitehere.

Frederick Community College

Cooling Springs Farm and the spring house are available
for study and tours sponsored by Frederick Community College. Peter Michael previously
served as Trustee of Frederick Community
College, a gubernatorial appointment, and teaches the College’s Underground
Railroad course. Visit the College's web sitehere.

The Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal National Historical Park

The canal, first conceived by George Washington, runs 185
miles from Georgetown in Washington, DC to Cumberland, Maryland. The
Frederick County, Maryland portion of the canal has been documented as an
Underground Railroad route as far back as 1843 when freedom seeker James
Curry of North Carolina traversed the county on the canal tow path. Visit the
park's web site here.

The canal has eleven aqueducts which transported cargo
barges over the rivers and creeks flowing under the aqueducts into the
Potomac River. One of the largest and most beautiful, the Catoctin Aqueduct,
is in Frederick County, Maryland, four miles from Cooling Springs Farm, and was
recently fully restored. Freedom seeker James Curry traversed this aqueduct. Visit
the Catoctin Aqueduct web sitehere.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Research on the Underground Railroad and Cooling Springs Farm

The Underground Railroad is an especially difficult
topic to research since it was an illegal and clandestine operation for all
of its 280-year existence. After the Civil War, some freedom seekers and a
very few Underground Railroad conductors and safe-house operators wrote down
their stories, but the vast majority did not. Even after the Civil War and
the enactment of the 13th, 14th ans 15th Amendments,
conductors and safe-house operators were persecuted for having aided freedom
seekers, and therefore many of those who provided aid took their Underground
Railroad involvement as secrets to the grave.

In other cases, families were split over the issue of
slavery, and sibling did not dare tell sibling of involvement in the
Underground Railroad. This is true of the Michael family: Daniel and Samuel
Michael, two pro-slavery brothers, very likely did not know of the roles of
their brothers Ezra and Henry Michael in sheltering freedom seekers,
especially after Daniel and Samuel were removed from the will of their father
for their pro-slavery stance.

Only about three percent of claimed Underground Railroad
sites in the United States have documentary evidence of involvement with the
other 97 percent known from oral tradition and occasional corroboration. The
most likely source of information on the dwindling number of known Underground
Railroad safe-houses and routes today is more than ever the oral traditions
passed down in the families of freedom seekers, conductors and safe-house
operators, and from property owner to property owner. For example, the chance
intersection of the present-day oral traditions of two families is how the
Michael family, descendants of safe-house operators, became aware of the
Wanzer family, descendants of freedom seekers who were likely sheltered at
Cooling Springs in 1855. However, very few of these oral traditions have been
published, and fewer still will show up in internet or bibliographic
searches. For the researcher interested in particular Underground Railroad
sites or areas, the best approach, though it is time consuming, is to start
asking the old families in the geographic area of interest, particularly
African-American families.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Sources on the Underground Railroad in General, the Underground Railroad
in
Frederick County, Maryland, and the Michael Family

In the following bibliography, sources especially
relevant to researching the Underground Railroad in and near Frederick
County, Maryland, are identified with a bullet •. Sources particularly
relevant to researching the Michael family and its involvement in the
Potomac-to-Doubs Route of the Underground Railroad are indicated by a double
bullet ••.

1.•
Adamstown Regional Plan, Board of County Commissioners and Division of
Planning, Frederick County, Maryland, 2001

10.Constitution
for the United States of America, Article I, Section 2, paragraph 3

11.•• Curry, James [his narrative of slavery],
reprinted in Slave Testimony: Two
Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, John W.
Blassingame, editor, Louisiana State University Press, 1977

12.•• County of Frederick, County Courthouse,
Frederick, Maryland [Wills]

13.•• County of Frederick, County Courthouse,
Frederick, Maryland [Land transfers]

24.• Gordon, Paul and Rita, A Textbook History of Frederick County, Board of Education of
Frederick County, Frederick, Maryland, 1975

25.• Gordon, Paul and Rita, Frederick County, Maryland: Never the Like Again, The Heritage
Partnership, Frederick, Maryland, 1995. This is a well-documented history of
Frederick County, Maryland, from 1859 through 1865, concentrating on the
Civil War.

46.•• Michael Strategic Analysis, Direct Testimony of Peter H. Michael on
the Underground Railroad Route Running Through the Site of Duke Energy's
Proposed Power Plant, testimony submitted in Maryland Public Service
Commission case number 8891, April, 2002

47.•• Michael Strategic Analysis, Substantiation of the Underground Railroad
Route from Point of Rocks to Doubs, Frederick County, Maryland, testimony
submitted in Maryland Public Service Commission case no. 8891, April, 2002

56.National Park Service, Application of the Balch Library, Leesburg, Virginia,for listing in the National
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, June 28, 2002

57.National Park Service, Application of the Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, Harpers
Ferry, West Virginia, for listing in the National Underground Railroad
Network to Freedom, December 31, 2001

58.National Park Service, Application of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington,
DC, for listing of Oatlands Plantation, Leesburg, Virginia, in the National
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, January, 2003

59.• National Park Service, Application of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical
Park, Sharpsburg, Maryland, for listing of Ferry Hill in the National
Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, January 15, 2002

67.Stowe, Harriet Beecher, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and
Documents Upon Which the Story Is Founded, John P. Jewett & Co.,
Boston,; Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, Cleveland; and Low and Company,
London, 1853. Reprinted by Applewood Books, 1998

68.•• Thompson, John, The Life of John Thompson, a Fugitive Slave; Containing His History
of 25 Years in Bondage, and His Providential Escape. Written by Himself,
C. Hamilton Palladium Office, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1856

69.•• Tracey, Grace L., and Dern, John P., Pioneers of Old Monocacy: The Early
Settlement of Frederick County, Maryland, 1721-1743, Clearfield Company,
[reprint edition], 2001

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

Underground Railroad Sites in Frederick County, Maryland

As of 2013, 61 confirmed or suspected Underground Railroad
safe-houses and routes had been identified in Frederick County,
Maryland.Of these, 39 are
confirmed or very likely Underground Railroad sites shown in red below, and
the others shown in blue are putative sites based on their likelihood of
having been involved in the Underground Railroad. Of the confirmed sites, 23
are mentioned in two or more documentary sources. Shown below is a map of
Underground Railroad safe-houses and routes in Frederick County, Maryland.
Cooling Springs Farm is in the cluster at the bottom of the map.

COOLING SPRINGS FARM

An American Family
of the Underground Railroad, by Peter Michael

Now rare nearly 150 years after the end of the uplifting
national phenomenon known as the Underground Railroad are the very few intact
family accounts of Underground Railroad safe-house operators. This book tells
the story of the extensively documented experiences of the family of author
Peter Michael in sheltering Underground Railroad freedom seekers, and the
reconnection after 150 years with the descendants of a freedom seeker who
likely passed through the Underground Railroad safe-house at the author's
Cooling Springs Farm, now an Underground Railroad historic site open to the
public.

To read more about An American Family of the Underground
Railroad and/or to purchase the book, go to its web sitehere.

To order the book on line from Amazon, clickhere.
To order the book on line at Barnes and Noble, clickhere.

Guide to Freedom: Rediscovering the
Underground Railroad In One United States County,Peter Michael's most recent book

Only in the last few years have places around the nation
begun to research and catalogue their Underground Railroad sites to
rediscover what the Underground Railroad looked like geographically. While
upstate New York, eastern Kansas and the Philadelphia area have made good
strides in this important rediscovery, very little has been done in border or
southern states where research is much more difficult. Peter Michael's Guide to Freedom identifies 61
safe-houses and routes in Maryland's
Frederick County with its key routes linking Virginia and
Pennsylvania. Breaking more new ground, Guide
to Freedom is believed to be the first Underground Railroad book to rate
sites according to their likelihood of authenticity.

To read more about Guide to Freedom and/or to purchase
the book, go to its web sitehere.